


Willing Suspension of Disbelief

by gardnerhill



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Community: watsons_woes, Crack, Gen, Real Life, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-11
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-04 05:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1767844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some authors shouldn’t attempt certain genres.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Willing Suspension of Disbelief

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2014 JWP Practice Prompt **#7: And We Are Merely Players:** (Cartoon: What if there's a parallel universe... Where fictional characters are real and real people are fictional characters and your favorite character runs a blog and writes fanfiction about you?)

  
  
Doyle looked up from the manuscript and fixed his client with a glare. “Do you want to put your readers to sleep?”  


Watson glared right back at his agent. “Tell me it isn’t probable, Arthur!”

Arthur Doyle set down the sheaf of papers and rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, exhaling in exasperation. “John, when you told me you wished to try your hand at futuristic fiction, I’d envisioned something … different.”

Watson’s moustache lifted in a lip-curl. “Time machines. Martian attacks. Ships to the Moon.”

“Snipe at Wells and Verne all you like, Watson – but at least they make their stories non-soporific.” Doyle’s own walrus moustache rustled with the sibilance of his words. 

John Watson threw his hands up in exasperation. “Arthur, that’s the whole point of the story! Wouldn’t a society with such mechanical wonders grow jaded with them? Familiarity breeds contempt. Even now the whole world is racing to make the first heavier-than-air craft – but surely its use would be as dull and commonplace in a world accustomed to it as a train-trip now, and trains would have been the marvel of the age 200 years ago. People would _sleep_ through the experience of flying across Europe or America.”

“And no doubt the tea and food served on such aircraft would be as foul as the stuff aboard trains,” Doyle added snidely.

“Exactly.”

“Frankly, John I find your view of humanity appalling. You have everyone carrying around pocket watch-sized devices that provide instant access to information and communication from all over the world…and most people use them only to read pornographic novels, play games, or have insult contests with each other.” Doyle shook his head. “Your story also takes place in a time when women have full suffrage and sexual liberation, with drugs that prevent pregnancy and venereal diseases – and your heroine remains celibate! Is she a neurotic, or just ugly?”

“She is a person who prefers solitude. This is not considered an illness among men.” Watson’s eyes narrowed. “I share lodgings with one such, and his brother evinces the trait to an even greater state. If women were permitted the same education and employment opportunities as men, many would no longer wed strictly for financial stability. Wouldn’t such naturally-solitary women prefer to remain solitary?”

“It’s dull! Why promise a story set in a sexually-liberated time when the girl might as well be living in a convent? No one will buy this.” With a wave of one dismissive hand, Arthur turned a few pages of the manuscript. “Well, I did like you making the President of the United States a black man. Though you’d lose sales in some American states.”

Watson snorted. “Too late. I lost them when you published ‘Yellow Face’. Remember the ungrammatical and poorly-spelled correspondence I received from Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi?”

“That reminds me, I have another batch of letters for you…” Doyle pulled out a box stuffed with envelopes date-stamped from America. 

Watson sighed. “Mormons?”

“Yes.”

“Throw them with the rest of the hate mail.”

Arthur nodded and tipped the box full of letters into the bin destined for the furnace. 

“You might as well throw this in with them.” Watson picked up his manuscript and ran one sad thumb across the pages. 

“Are you sure, John?” Doyle’s tone was not unsympathetic. “It’s not all bad, really – just, humdrum. That’s the word for it, _humdrum_. The woman’s an interesting plot device for seeing this future world, but she’s no Sherlock Holmes.”

Watson shrugged and smiled, tossing his opus into the bin. “Hardly my fault that truth is stranger than fiction.”  



End file.
